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The Tennessean

Music Health Alliance helps those in the music industry navigate the health insurance landscape. / Shelley Mays / The Tennessean

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Joey Huffman, one of the music industry’s most decorated keyboard and piano players, spent the last few months battling more than the effects of a brain tumor and the tag-along condition that came with it called “suicide disease.”

Huffman was also battling a health care system that left him in fear of financial calamity. The cost of the surgery to remove the benign, yet debilitating schwannoma tumor that compressed nerves in his brain, was $80,000. That doesn’t even include the bills for the pain medication, recovery and follow-up visits.

Despite a decorated career over the last two decades playing for the likes of Bob Dylan, Matchbox 20, Hank Williams Jr., Cee-lo Green and others, Huffman was uninsured. So he turned to a new Nashville-based nonprofit organization called the Music Health Alliance for help.

With the organization’s founder, Tatum Hauck Allsep, leading the way, Music Health Alliance went to work for Huffman, 51, trying to understand his condition and find the proper treatments. The first step was determining which pain medication would work best for him.

But the real challenge was helping Huffman figure out a way to pay for everything. Music Health Alliance answered that problem by working with the Atlanta hospital to delay his procedure until January, so that he could find health insurance through the federal insurance exchange created by the Affordable Care Act.

Because he will be insured when the surgery takes place, Huffman’s cost will be reduced exponentially, especially when the funds raised from outside donations are factored in.

“Dealing with the business end of having an operation like this, it’s great to have somebody to advocate for you,” Huffman said.

Music Health Alliance’s mission is to help musicians like Huffman and others working in the music industry navigate the increasingly complex health care industry.

Operating on a bare-bones startup budget, the organization seeks to help musicians make decisions about their health care, understand their insurance policies and navigate the new Affordable Care Act effectively. The organization, which has four licensed health insurance brokers and certified patient navigators, is seeking to help fill the void created by an industry where 76 percent have no access to group health insurance.

“My mission was to bring advocacy to the music industry,” Hauck Allsep said.

Her mission began a decade ago when, despite having what she thought was a good health insurance plan, Hauck Allsep found herself facing a six-figure bill after giving birth to twin boys.

Hauck Allsep, who up until that point had enjoyed a successful 20-year career as an artist manager and industry executive, went to work for Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help the hospital “tear down the magnolia curtain” between Vanderbilt and Music Row. She worked for another health care-related venture as well, before the Affordable Care Act came along and further complicated the issue for today’s musicians.

Because many aspiring musicians work part-time jobs to make ends meet, and even the most successful Nashville musicians are paid as contractors, health insurance is a problem for those at both ends of the spectrum.

City National Bank Senior Vice President Holly Bell, who is on the advisory board for Music Health Alliance, said the organization is critically needed in the music industry. Bell said she sees talented musicians switch to other careers so they can have access to health insurance.

“If we really do want to see the entertainment community thrive and exist so that great and talented people do this as a career, then we need more people like Tatum,” Bell said.

Huffman said navigating health care can be especially daunting to left-brained musicians, not just for financial reasons, but also because many aren’t programmed to do so.

“It seems so mysterious and scary to deal with. It’s like getting taxes done,” he said. “Musicians need this – we need someone who speaks musician. People who don’t live a normal lifestyle, that don’t live 9-to-5 and have a regular paycheck and live from gig to gig could benefit from this immensely.”

The next step for Music Health Alliance will be to bulk up its fundraising.

Since they provide insurance, Allsep explained that any commissions earned from the sale of health insurance goes directly into a fund called the Cowboy Jack Clinic Fund. Though the organization helps musicians across the country, its hub of operations is in Nashville, where its executives currently work out of home offices. Allsep currently splits time between Nashville and Alabama.

“The final remaining limitation on Music Health Alliance’s ability to fully serve the health care support needs of the music industry is access to adequate funding,” she said.

Contact music business reporter Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 or nrau@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter @tnnaterau.